Just got back from Waterstones with daughter 2, buying birthday books for her friends. There’s a one-way system in the shopping precinct with barriers and floor stickers, so it’s obvious where to walk to comply with common-sense Covid precautions – unless one has one’s head up one’s arse…

A retired guy and his wife walk against us, so I smile and point it out, literally “‘scuse me mate, there’s a one-way system.” She changes direction, walks around out of our path; it was easy, they’d only just turned in.

He though, mask under his chin, continues walking and snarls at me, “it doesn’t fucking matter,” so I stopped him with a swift northern dismissal and wished him dead.*

Ok, just that last bit is a lie, I didn’t tell him I wished him dead, I don’t know if he’s insured and if his wife can be free of what I inferred from that fleeting moment.

But it does matter, it really really does.**

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* I’d have loved to have given him a piece of my mind, but him swearing with my daughter there it was plain there’s no room in his mind for anything but selfishness and hate. So I think I’ll have a mug of tea (3 sugars) and move right on.

** I wore my new Cleveland Browns mask. Steamy windows syndrome with this one!